Yesterday, in the
hearings session on human rights in Venezuela of the Organization of American
States – Inter-American Commission of Human Rights, the Venezuelan government representative
Germán Saltrón devoted most of his interventions (from minute 25:00 on) to discredit
the opposition, calling it catastrophic and coup oriented and that accusing it
of “never corresponded to the trust President Chávez put in it.”

He also referred to
recent protests as an “evolving coup d’état which began in February 12 with a
demonstration that turned violent when the opposition leader Leopoldo López
showed up together with his followers and pupils, funded and trained by the
government of the United States and attacked the offices of the Public Attorney
(…), partially destroying the building…”

After describing the
violent protests that followed and blaming the opposition for the violence Saltrón
made this remarkable interpretation of their motives (31:56): “The objective
[of the protests] is to provoke clashes of Venezuelans among themselves in
order to simulate a civil war and to ask for the foreign intervention of the
NATO military, and in this way put an end to the Bolivarian Revolution and hand
the biggest oil resources of the world to the United States.”

Friday, March 28, 2014

Communication and
Information Minister Delcy Rodriguez twitted yesterday that she would ask for
an investigation over the use of crossword puzzles by the regional daily El Aragueño for making "conspiracy
calls" through coded messages.

It’s not the first
time such allegations are made Venezuela. In May 2012 Miguel Pérez Pirela, conductor
of the Venezolana de Televisión television
program “Cayendo y Corriendo,” claimed that crossword puzzles published by the
daily Últimas Noticias were being
used to send coded massages calling for the assassination of high government officials.

“The first event happened
last Sunday in the water treatment plant of Bourgin, in the State of Mérida,
where 100 liters of gasoil were emptied [into the water] endangering the lives
of 180,000 inhabitants of the State, which represents 80% of the population. (…)
The second terrorist act happened Monday afternoon when two areas of the
National Park Waraira Repano were burnt…” explained the note.

The fires in the
Ávila produced an energy blackout in northern Caracas which lasted through Monday
night. According to the Electric Energy Minister, Jesse Chacón, “the way in
which the event occurred leads us to conclude that it was intentional, first of
all because the transmission lines that feed Caracas pass through the Waraira
Repano.”

The timing and place
of the fires is also evidence of sabotage, according to Chacón: “First we had a
fire in El Marqués at 6:00pm and we were able to control it, and then another
one in the Cota Mil [Waraira Repano] at night. The fires were in in the two
only places [in the park] where there are substations of the National Electric
System.”

On the poisoning of
Merida’s water supply, Environment Minister, Miguel Leonardo Rodríguez declared:
“This was, from any point of view, a premeditated and macabre action. They
gained access to the water pipe lines, the ones that are just outside the
treatment plant, they perforated these pipes and poured in 100 liters of what
we presume was gasoil.”

The AVN press note
ends by putting these two events into context:

“These attacks on the
waters supply the State of Merida and the National Electric System are part of
the assault [arremetida] of terrorist
groups that have also vandalized schools, university institutes, tourists
infrastructure, and the transport system, all in the context of a destabilizing
agenda that aims at generating a coup d’état in the country. As part of these
attacks 36 people, civilians and officers of State security forces, have died.”